Grace Known by Faith
11 February 2004, 10 am | Quote
I randomly opened up the Catechism of the Catholic Church this morning. It opened to an old bookmarked page on God’s grace. I found this paragraph comforting in light of my current mood.
2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord’s words “Thus you will know them by their fruits”—reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.
A pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of St. Joan of Arc to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.’”
![[image: 'Smiling Jesus']](http://journal.cowpi.com/grafiks/sidebar/smiling-jesus2.jpg "'Smiling Jesus'")
![[Jerusalem Cross with Heart]](http://cowpi.com/journal/grafiks/jerusalem-cross-heart.gif "Jerusalem Cross with Heart")
Comments
Was this what the Council of Trent created?
∼ πλ · 11 February 2004, 7 pm · by Andrew Kierig ¬
Andrew - I do not know. That might be when they put it down on paper, but I would bet that this idea of grace as been handed down through tradition from apostolic times. It even sounds like something Paul has written in his letters within the Bible, just using different words.
∼ πλ · 12 February 2004, 8 am · by Mark ¬
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